Healthcare experts urge use of condoms to prevent HIV

CONDOMS ARE essential to prevent the spread of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), experts said, as the latest studies show that the infection rate is still high among men who have sex with men (MSM) and teenagers due to unsafe sex. 
On the occasion of World Aids Day tomorrow, it was revealed that the MSM and teenagers were the primary HIV-infected groups. The information was provided by social workers in the healthcare sector who put this increase in infections to a problem with the availability of condoms, and unprotected sex. 
Dr Panumard Yarnwaidsaku, deputy director-general of the Disease Control Department, said there had been 6,304 new infections in Thailand this year alone, which brought the country’s total number of people living with HIV/Aids up to 426,999.
“According to our study, most of the HIV infections are among the MSM group – 9.2 out of 100 individuals in this group are HIV-positive. This is by far the largest HIV-infected group,” Panumard said. “This is followed by heterosexual couples and sex workers, but the rate of infections in these two groups got better over the past few years.”
Meanwhile, Nimit Tienudom, Aids Access Foundation director, said although the overall new infection rate in Thailand is slowly dropping, new infections among people aged between 15 and 24 were still worrisome. 
“Our studies have found that the rate of infections among young people is rising regardless of their sexual tendencies, and this is happening in both urban and rural areas,” Nimit said.
He added that the rising rate of infections among teenagers and MSM was directly associated with the lack of condom use, as studies also show that the rate of syphilis and other sexually transmitted diseases (STD) was also high among these groups. 
“I have also observed that there is an increase in the use of PreExposure Prophylaxis [PrEP] as a means to prevent HIV infections among young people and MSM. But this is a problem because they use PrEP pills as the only method to prevent HIV, but do not use condoms during sexual intercourse,” he said. 
The PrEP contains two medicines (tenofovir and emtricitabine) that are used in combination with other medicines to treat HIV. Uninfected people who think they are at risk of getting infected usually take these pills on a daily basis. 
“There is still a debate about whether PrEP pills can effectively prevent HIV, and the best means of prevention is to also use condoms. Also, PrEP pills do not protect users from other STD,” he said. 
Path2Health Foundation coordinator Pornnuch Sattapornsawat said teenagers did not have easy access to condoms, which led them to having unprotected sex.
“Our foundation has joined non-formal schools to launch a campaign promoting safe sex to prevent HIV transmission and teenage pregnancy. From our campaign, we learned that condoms are not readily available to teenagers and this has contributed to more unsafe sex,” Pornnuch said.
“We are getting teenagers to distribute condoms among their peers, which has proved to be a very successful method in boosting condom accessibility. However, the biggest problems are the shortage in condoms and the negative opinion of teachers and parents about campaign. They see this as us encouraging teenagers to have sex.” 
According to the Disease Control Department, the government distributes some 30 million condoms per year, which is not enough to meet the real demand of about 98 million per year. 
Pornnuch added that students in the formal high-school system find it most difficult to get condoms, as fewer of them get these prophylactics for free and condoms sold in supermarkets are far too expensive.
“The use of condoms is compulsory to prevent HIV, STD and unplanned pregnancies. The society should understand that it is natural for teenagers to have sex and that our job is to teach them how to have safe sex and how they should protect themselves from sexual harassment and other harm instead of forbidding them from having sex,” she said. 
For this year’s World Aids Day, Panumard said Thailand has set three goals to be achieved by 2030: reducing new HIV infections to 1,000 cases per year, cutting deaths among the HIV-positive to less than 4,000 per year, and reducing HIV-related stigmatisation by 90 per cent. 
“The yearly budget for HIV-prevention campaigns is Bt6 million. Right now, our main effort is to cut down on the HIV stigma in line with the international goal to totally remove this stigma by 2020,” he said.